


Until There's a Word For It

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Compliant, F/M, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Growing up on the Ark, Clarke knows the things she has to do and the person she's supposed to be.On the ground, things can be different.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Do you spend a lot of time being salty about how the writers put no thought into sexuality worldbuilding? I sure do!

On the Ark, most things are dictated by practicality. That's what Clarke is taught growing up. They have ration chips because they have to be careful about food supplies. Her mother sometimes gets attacked at the clinic because they can't just be giving out medicine freely, so some people think they can take it. She has to learn Earth Skills to keep the knowledge alive, so her child or her grandchild will be able to use it, when they go back down to the surface.

And she will have a child, of course. That's one of the first things she remembers learning: every woman must have one child and one child only, because they have to limit the population while also maximizing genetic diversity. Clarke will be part of the first generation to have to apply for approval before reproducing, to make sure the bloodlines are divergent enough.

"But I don't want to have a baby," she tells her mother. She's seven, and Dr. Hendricks just had a baby of her own. It's small and red and cries all the time, and Dr. Hendricks nearly didn't survive the birth. Nothing about it seems appealing to Clarke.

"It's not always like that," says her mother. "You were an easy birth." 

"Popped right out and started screaming," adds her father, with a grin. "We knew you were going to be trouble right from the start."

It doesn't take long for people to notice that she and Wells would be a good match, to start remarking on what a perfect couple they'd make. It reminds Clarke of regency romances, of royalty. A focus on bloodlines and breeding, on making the best children, and assuming that's the surest path to happiness.

(It will not make her think of eugenics for a long time. Not until she gets to Mount Weather.)

She's nine when she finds out that her classmate Viola's parents are both women, and some small hope she didn't know she was nursing dies a soft, almost unnoticed death.

"Then how did they have you?" she asks. "Where did you come from?"

"Mama's my _mother_ ," says Viola. "And Mom had another kid. She lives with her fathers in Mech Station."

"So you kind of have a sister," Clarke says. _Sister_ is one of those words that tastes strange in her mouth, something that doesn't seem real, but--she does, right? No one has a real sister, but that's close. As close as anyone could come.

But Viola doesn't think so, apparently. She scoffs, "Not really. I don't know her name or anything. It's just what you do, when you don't want to marry a boy. _I'm_ not going to marry one," she adds, decisive, and Clarke hadn't ever thought about it.

It wasn't as if she hadn't known women married women, or men men, before that. But she'd never consciously connected it to children before. Now she realizes some part of her had thought it might be a loophole, that if she'd married a woman like she thought she might, no one could make her have a child either. It's a disappointment to find out it's not true, but there's some appeal to the truth, too. Not as much as never having children, but there's something strangely exciting about her future child having a secret sibling, this strange person to whom they're connected, even if they never met.

"I'm going to marry a woman," she tells her father.

He smiles. "Did you have one in mind?"

"Not yet. Maybe Viola," she muses. "She doesn't want to marry a boy either."

"That seems like a good plan, then."

It doesn't stop her liking boys, of course. When she's twelve, she and Wells try kissing, and it's fine, and when she's fourteen, she kisses Nova Wong, and that's even better. But that's less to do with Nova being a girl and more to do with Wells being Wells. She's not very interested in kissing Wells, even if he still seems interested in kissing her.

The first time she has sex, it's with a girl, and the second time it's with a boy. She figures that's just normal, that everyone just settles down with the person who's their favorite, eventually, and it's a genuine shock when she and Nate Miller kiss in spin the bottle, and he tells her he doesn't like girls.

"How?"

He shrugs. "Why would I?"

"I don't know. What's not to like?"

"All the soft parts," he teases. She does like Miller.

"Guys have soft parts too."

"Not as many. And their most important parts hard _very_ hard," he adds, and she groans. 

But that's not what she's thinking about.

"So, if you marry a guy, and I marry a girl, we could still have a kid together."

Miller snorts and takes a drink of moonshine. "Is this seriously what you worry about? How you'll have a kid if you marry a girl?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You getting married any time soon?"

"Of course not."

"Then I wouldn't worry. They'll figure it out."

She starts working after school in medical when she's sixteen, and she finds _partner gender preference_ is stored in medical records, right below _birth sex_ and _gender_. She remembers her mother asking her about it, when she was getting her implant put in, but she somehow hadn't realized it was _on the record_ , that anyone cared enough to make a note of it. 

It's the kind of thing she knows she shouldn't pay attention to--that's not what medical records are for--but she's curious anyway. She starts a log, just check marks in her journal, keeping track of what people's preferences are--men, women, both, neither, other--and it's strange, seeing the raw data, how many more people than she realized only like men or only like women. Even having talked to Nate, and talked to her female friends who are only interested in men, she'd assumed most people _must_ be like her.

When she and Wells watch vids, she pays attention to the romances, to see if the numbers seem the same. When they aren't, she starts doing research, finds a whole history of new words, of changing terms, a strange, vibrant, unknown part of human history. It reminds her of when she was ten and Wells found out about racial discrimination, this ugly secret none one taught them in school, because they were afraid if children knew these things, they'd repeat them. Denial disguised as protection.

She learns some bad words, slurs, but she learns good ones, too. _Bisexual_ for herself and her father, this private, unspoken thing between the two of them. He's never mentioned it; she just had to check his file for work and saw it there, a secret that isn't a secret, a connection just for her. Maybe not _everyone_ feels the same way she does, but her father is like her. That means a lot.

The first time she sees the name Bellamy Blake, it's at the clinic, when she's reviewing medical records. She notes his file because he's answered _neither_ to his partner gender preference, and the physician's note says: _No interest in romance or sex as of last checkup; would prefer to not have children or contribute genetic material_. _Neither_ is already the least common of the responses, and she's never seen a note like that. No one ever even _asked_ Clarke if she would prefer to not have children, and she wonders how Bellamy Blake convinced anyone to ask him.

The second time she sees his name, it's because they found his sister living in his floor, and the third time, she doesn't actually _see_ his name. She's on the ground, and she meets him instead.

But they're _on Earth_ , and none of the things she wondered about him seem to matter anymore. She has too many new things to think about for her to care about the things she knew before.

Finn is easy, in a nice way. Uncomplicated. And that's what she wants, out of a relationship. Everything else on the ground is conflict and death and pain; Finn is supposed to be a safe haven.

He's not, of course; what's strange is that Bellamy is. Not right away, not until she figures him out, but--for all they fight, for all they don't always get along, when she's with him, the world feels survivable. And when she's with him, she can relax.

Which is why she has to leave. She doesn't know how to be fine yet, and she would be, sooner or later, with him. That's what Bellamy does: he makes her feel better.

She never had time to ask Lexa about Grounders and gender preferences before Mount Weather; it was a project she lost track of on the ground except for a few persistent memories of private files and conversations: Bellamy Blake, previously uninterested in sex and romance, Zoe Monroe, does not identify with a gender, Miller, exclusively attracted to men. It's a list of trivia facts, not anything that matters.

But she's still curious. The part of her that wonders about these things, it never went away. It was just--quiet.

"Is this normal here?" she asks Niylah. They're in bed together, curled close, and she has to leave soon, but--she has a minute.

"Which part?" asks Niylah.

"Women with other women. Men with men. I know the commander takes female lovers, but--"

"It's not uncommon. Is it uncommon among the sky people?"

Clarke thinks it over. She's never done a study, not formally, just made her own notes. It's nothing concrete. "It's complicated," she decides. "It's not uncommon for us either. But it's inconvenient."

"Hm," says Niylah, but she's already drifting off, and Clarke doesn't want to keep her awake just for that. She has to leave anyway.

She still doesn't have time to discuss it with Lexa; first, it feels too intimate to ask, like the question would be larger than just a question, and then it doesn't feel like they have time, and then they really _don't_ have time. And it doesn't become a regret, not exactly, not when stacked against all of the other regrets she has about the two of them, but it feels like having a loose tooth, almost. She wonders how Lexa knew she might be interested in that, how Niylah did. If there's some beacon about her that lets people know that gender doesn't matter to her. That she used to think she'd rather marry a girl than anyone else.

But it doesn't matter, not really. Not when she has so much else to do.

It's Bellamy who brings her mind to it again, not that he means to. It's three months after the founding of the new settlement, and things are going--well. Things have been going well for long enough that Clarke is almost--almost--letting herself _think_ about things _being_ well. About all of them being okay, in a sustained sense.

Maybe he's thinking about it too, because he sticks his head in her cabin and says, "Going to the trading post, you want to come?"

"Do you need me?" she asks, surprised. "I thought you and Miller had it covered."

He shifts a little, clearly unsure, and then says, "Niylah asked about you last time. I thought you might want to come."

Clarke and Niylah slept together one more, during the celebrations after they'd defused the reactors. It had been nice, a good way to blow off steam, but it wasn't really--anything. 

_Uncomplicated_. But not in the way that made her want to see her more. Not in the way that made her want to stay.

"Oh."

Bellamy shrugs. "You're not doing anything else, right?" he asks, and it sounds like a bigger question than just _Do you want to come along?_

And it feels like time. "No, I'm not. Tell Miller he can stay here, I'll come."

There's a flash of something on his face, fleeting, and then he nods. "Cool, sounds good. Be ready in fifteen."

Once they're driving, she asks him, "Do you like sex?"

He swerves a little and swears, and Clarke settles more firmly into her seat with a small smile. "Excuse me?" he asks.

"Sex."

"Uh, yeah, sure. Why?"

"Because your last medical record said you didn't."

There's a long pause while he thinks about this, and finally he asks, "On the Ark?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't think those made it down here."

"They didn't." She pauses, but it's Bellamy. She can tell him anything. "I used to read them, when I was working in medical."

He snorts. "Wow. Ethical."

"It was my job!"

"Uh huh." He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "Why were you reading mine?"

"I don't actually remember. It was one of my jobs, organizing files, and yours was in there. Not--I didn't know it was _yours_ ," she says, and it's so disconcerting to think of things like that. Sometimes, she can't help wondering if she ever saw him, and it makes her wince to know she almost certainly didn't. That she never would have known him. He never would have had a reason to come to Alpha Station, and she never went to Mech. "It must have been when we were doing transfers," she realizes. She wouldn't have had any reason to even see his files, ordinarily.

"That doesn't explain why you read it."

"I liked to check the partner gender preferences," she says. "I had a chart. No names, just--numbers."

He snorts. "Of course you did. Creepy and mildly invasive, but basically harmless."

"I remembered yours because you said you didn't want to have kids or contribute genetic material. And you weren't interested in sex or relationships. Most people who weren't interested in that didn't mind contributing genetics. But--you always seemed to like sex down here. So--was it because of Octavia?"

"Kind of." He sighs, and she feels abruptly guilty.

"You don't have to talk about it. I was just--curious."

"About the invasive and creepy research you did before we ever met," he teases. But then he sobers, seems to really be thinking about it. "It was probably mostly Octavia. My mom a little, too. She had to--sex was a tool for her, I guess. We didn't have a lot of resources, and that was one she did have. And I get it, but--I never saw it doing anyone much good, you know? First there was O, and then everything my mom had to do to keep her, it just--fuck, I wasn't interested. But maybe if I could have brought someone home or ever--what was I gonna do with a spouse and a kid? Try to hide Octavia from them? Make them keep my secrets too? It just wasn't worth it."

"Is it now?" she asks. As far as she knows, he's been single since Gina, and all she knows about Gina is rumor and allusion, almost none of it from Bellamy himself. She knows she could ask him, but it feels impolite to ask, when he hasn't asked her about Lexa. They have some bad memories from when they were apart; they'll talk about them or they won't. They haven't decided yet.

"I'm not getting laid," he says. He's not looking at her. "It can be fun. I'm not opposed. But--it was a tool for me too. It worked for what I was selling back then. I don't need to sell that anymore."

"So you're not looking."

"No," he agrees. "Not looking."

"But you want kids," she says, feeling sure. "You want--a partner."

"I have a partner," he says, and she smiles.

"A spouse."

He looks thoughtful, watching the road, and Clarke doesn't push. He didn't forget. "I like kids. We'll have a lot around. I'm probably not going to be that upset if none of them are mine. But if I found someone and they wanted us to get kids, I'd make it happen. Or--even if I didn't find someone. If there are kids around who need someone, I'd probably step up."

"Of course you would."

"Is there a reason you're asking about this?"

"I was always really curious about this stuff. I always sort of--my mom told me I had to have a kid. I always knew that, from when I was really young. It was my responsibility."

"Yeah," says Bellamy. "That can fuck you up."

"I thought for a while if I married a girl, I could get out of it, but--that doesn't work."

"So you don't want kids?"

"Not exactly." She closes her eyes, leans back. "I was just--it's this weird thing no one talks about, I guess. I always knew I could marry a woman, but no one ever _told_ me. It felt like this secret answer, even though it wasn't."

"It's a lot easier if you just marry a guy and reproduce," he says. "Practically speaking. And maybe there's some stigma left, I don't know. It used to be--"

"A big deal. I know. I read a lot about it. Bisexual," she says, and she's never said it aloud before. "That's the word they used to use, for people like me. You're--"

"Asexual. Kind of. You're not the only one who can read," he says, giving her a smirk, and it makes her heart flutter. _I know who Oppenheimer is_ , she thinks, and no one makes her feel like that but Bellamy. No one ever has. "I don't know. It never bothered me much. I was glad I wasn't wishing I was having a ton of sex, because it would have been a pain. But I like it fine. I like--" Color races up his neck. "It makes other people feel good. I like that."

She has to smile. "Of course you do."

"Seriously, why are we talking about this?"

"I want to ask Niylah what it's like for grounders. If they still have words for preferences, stuff like that. I need to do that without making her think I'm interested in--anything."

"Are you not?"

"Not with her," she says, and it's true.

She knows what she really wants now; she's not interested in anything else. 

Sexuality is a project she works on in her spare time, when she's not doing more important things. She collects grounder words like jewels, finds that different clans have different terms, depending on their individual customs. Some of the clans have skewed gender ratios, so people who experience exclusively other-sex attraction have labels for themselves, but never bothered with words for same-sex attraction. Others, with breeding concerns more like the Ark's, have identities based more around reproductive interest than gender preferences.

It's not really a scientific study. She doesn't know if different populations are more or less inclined to different kinds of attraction, how much of a factor socialization is. But she reports everything to Bellamy, and he smiles and tells her it's interesting, and she thinks he really means it.

"I'm not sure what you're getting out of this," he admits, when she finishes updating her dictionary one night.

"I don't know either. But I'm definitely getting something."

"There are easier ways to figure out your dating pool," he finally says. "I'm pretty sure this is casting a wider net than you need to."

"That's not why I'm doing it. I just--I think we should use words again," she says.

"Yeah?"

She leans into his side; she's been doing it more and more, and one of them is going to mention it soon. But all he's done so far is put his arm around her, so he'll be closer. Which is all she needs, for now. "I like the words. I like--they're _useful_. If you have options, you can pick the right one. But I didn't--I had no idea how anyone else felt, you know? I just thought everyone was like me."

"You would," he says, grinning. "But I get what you mean." He squeezes her shoulders. "I'll help. Just tell me what I can do."

"What you're doing," she says, and closes her eyes and goes to sleep against his shoulder.

It doesn't change much. When Murphy tells a grounder that he shouldn't hit on Clarke because she's more into girls, she says she's _bisexual_ , and Murphy doesn't miss a beat when he says, "Is that your new way of saying _into Bellamy_? Because I was trying not to say that."

"I like both," she says. "Men and women." She bites her lip. "But I'm not looking right now," she adds, to the grounder. "Sorry."

"I figured you'd like _into girls_ more than _failing to make a move_ ," Murphy says.

" _Not looking_ ," she says. "That's my preference. And I can speak for myself."

"Jeez, fine. I'll shut up." He pauses. "Where'd you come up with bisexual?"

"It's an old word."

"Huh. That's kind of cool."

Clarke has to smile. "Yeah. I thought so."

They haven't seen Octavia for almost a year, and when she finally does show up, Clarke understands why she stayed away so long. The baby in her arms is small and red and healthy-looking, and Bellamy never would have let her leave, if she came when she was pregnant.

"I can't keep this," she tells Clarke, face hard.

"What do you expect me to do about it?" she shoots back, just as harsh. Bellamy's out hunting, and Clarke can't decide if she's glad or not.

"You can keep it here, right? You guys have plenty of babies. Someone must have room for another."

"And that's it?" Clarke asks. "You're just going to drop off a baby and leave?"

She wishes she could take some vindictive pleasure in the way Octavia winces, but she can't, not really. Bellamy says he gets why his sister had to leave, and he doesn't mind. And most of the time, when he says it, he makes it sound like he believes it.

Clarke doesn't have to do that. Clarke gets to think she should have stayed.

"I'm not leaving right away," she says. And then, soft, "He's going to be so disappointed. This is--it's what happened to Mom."

It's incomprehensible to Clarke, that _this_ should be what Octavia is worrying about. Facing her brother after having a child is somehow worse than facing him after leaving him, after everything.

But she's never had a sister. She doesn't know what it's like. She can't.

"He'll be more disappointed when you leave," says Clarke. She opens her arms, and Octavia hands her the child without even a second of hesitation. Clarke hasn't held a baby in a while, and the weight is unfamiliar. The child can't be more than a week old, darker than Octavia, and it would be nice, to think it was Lincoln's, and not just someone who reminded Octavia of Lincoln's, but Clarke can do the math. "Did you name it?"

"No," says Octavia. "It's a girl. Bell can name girls."

"He'll be back in half an hour or so," she says. "You have to tell him yourself. But I'll take her to medical and get started on placement."

They don't really have an adoption process set up yet; there have been a few kids born to people who weren't ready to take them, but the council hasn't had to step in to find care for them. It's just happened naturally. And, if she's honest, Clarke thinks that will happen here too. It's Octavia's daughter; she can't believe Bellamy will let anyone else take her. So she doesn't worry about notifying anyone that there's a child who needs care. Not until he shows up.

But she does think--he doesn't have to do it _alone_ , right? That was the promise she made to herself, when they settled here, when Octavia left. That Bellamy Blake won't have to face anything without her again, not unless he wants to.

"You want two parents?" she asks the baby. She's settled into a makeshift crib, and she seems fairly happy with it. "It's nice. Even if one's tough to deal with, you have the other. I don't think I've got a lot to offer that Bellamy can't, but it's probably good to have backup. And you won't have to be--" She smiles. "Anything. You don't have to hide, you don't have to have kids. You don't have to fight. You can just--be happy. That's what we're going to do for you."

"I don't get a say, huh?"

Clarke startles at the sound of Bellamy's voice, whirls to see him leaning against the door. He's watching her with a small, private smile, arms crossed over his chest, and he doesn't look like talking to his sister broke his heart.

"Sorry," she says, keeping her voice even. "Were you not going to take the baby?"

"I didn't know you were involved." She can see him hesitate, see the thoughts racing over his face, and even if she can't read all of them, she doesn't feel nervous. 

And then he crosses the room and kisses her.

The relief of it is immediate, and she melts into him, arms going around his neck, mouth opening for him. There was a part of her that worried he might not like this, might not--she doesn't _need_ sex. She wouldn't care. But she likes it, and she'd like to have it a lot. With him.

Kissing seems like a good start. She wouldn't mind just having this either.

The baby makes a sound around when his hands slip under the hem of her shirt, and he pulls back with a soft laugh.

"Okay, so--that's cool," he says, smiling.

"Yeah, that's great."

"But we should figure out the baby first."

"I was hoping you knew how they worked."

"Mostly, yeah." He rests his forehead against hers, warm and close. "But I wouldn't mind the help. They're a lot of work. Diapers are gross."

"That's why, huh?" 

He kisses her again, all too quickly, and then picks up his niece. It's like nothing she's ever seen before, watching his face transform as he looks at her, and Clarke finds herself settling in against his side just to make sure she isn't forgotten.

"Is your sister still here?"

"She said she'd stick around for a week. She thought I'd be pissed."

Clarke thinks he should be, but it's his business if he's not. "It's good that she's staying," she says instead, and Bellamy snorts and kisses her temple.

"Wow. That was really convincing."

"Shut up." She offers her finger to the baby, smiles when she takes it and holds on tight. "She still needs a name. Octavia said you were good at that."

"Nike," he says, slow. "The spirit of victory." He ducks his head. "It seems right, for O's kid. For us. That's what she is, right? Victory. We're here, we're safe. We figured it out. We won." He offers her a small smile. "Names matter, right? We want her to know who she is."

 _Victory_ , Clarke thinks, and it does feel like that, now that he says it. It's overwhelming, to look at a baby and think she _wants this_ , when this morning she wouldn't even imagined it. But Bellamy is warm at her side, and she can't imagine being anywhere else.

He's right; they figured everything out. She's _good_. This is who she's supposed to be. She's so sure.

Time for the next big adventure.

"That sounds perfect, yeah," she says, realizing Bellamy's still waiting on her. "Are you ready to take her home?"

"Not really." He grins. "But we're not getting any readier, right?"

"No," she agrees. "This is as ready as I'll ever be."

And, by some strange miracle, she is. She's not totally prepared for everything--babies are _messy_ , and loud, and it's more than a little annoying that her romantic relationship with Bellamy started at the same time they got a child, because they just don't have much _time_ \--but she thinks she's a good mother, and she knows Bellamy is a good father. And they do well with her.

By the time she's two, Nike is sleeping through the night, and Clarke thinks she's as competent as she's going to get.

"Do you know why I wanted to marry a girl when I was younger?" she asks. They're curled up together, naked and worn out; after much discussion and experimentation, they've found Bellamy isn't nearly as invested in sex in and of itself as she is, but he likes it _with her_ , as something they do together. 

Like always, he likes making her happy.

He kisses her shoulder. "Because you were bisexual but going through a phase where you thought boys were gross?"

She grins. Labels are catching on slowly, but everyone agrees they're useful as shorthand, a quick, easy way to describe what you like. "Actually no. I knew this girl whose parents were both women, and she told me there was another kid who belonged to her other mother, in Farm Station."

"And?"

"And I thought it would be cool. For my kid to kind of have a sibling. If I had to have one, I wanted them to have that."

"Huh. That's kind of weirdly nice."

"So I think we should have another kid."

He freezes, and she nearly takes it back, but then he laughs. "So, what I'm hearing is that you didn't want to have kids when the Ark said you had to, but now that no one cares, you figure we might as well have a couple."

"I think it would be nice. We're doing pretty well, right? I could do this again."

"Yeah. But if we wait long enough, someone will probably just give us another one."

"Still not interested in contributing genetic material?" she asks, curious.

"I can if you want to." He leans forward, and she cranes around to give him the kiss. "I don't want anyone else contributing theirs," he adds. "But--birth sucks. I remember watching my mom have Octavia. We're not on the Ark. That's not the only way we could get a kid."

"You make it sound like you're going to steal one," she says. 

"The word you're looking for is _adoption_. You don't have to get pregnant for Nike to have a sister, Clarke. We can just put ourselves on the list and see what happens." He nuzzles her neck. "This isn't the Ark. We can have more than one kid, and you don't have to actually _have_ any of them. That gets my vote."

"You just like strays," she teases, but--it sounds good. She and Bellamy are good with strays. And there's something appealing about never giving birth, about never passing on her own genetics. Taking all that good breeding and potential that she was told she had to share for the good of her people and using it to take in children that no one wants.

"It's pretty amazing, right?" he asks. "Having more kids than we know what to do with?"

Bellamy's whole childhood revolved around his mother having more kids than she knew what to do with, but Clarke gets what he means. "Pretty amazing." She closes her eyes. "Did you ever think you'd get this?" she asks, because that's the real question, isn't it? If she really can have all the things she wanted, if the world can really be the way she thought it should be, when she was small and pushing back against the walls of the Ark. 

"Which part?" he asks, and then laughs a little. "Never mind. I didn't think I'd get any of it. But I think we can keep it."

It sounds so easy. The good kind of easy, though. The uncomplicated kind of complexity. "Yeah," she says. "I think we can too."

**Author's Note:**

> I think this particular Bellamy would probably ID as gray-asexual, but I also didn't feel like that was a term he would find in archives, so he's using the broader term as an approximation.


End file.
